"Sulu, set path to the root directory and install the ram disk for
320k. We're taking her out."
"Aye, sir."
"Scotty, I want full power to the megabit ram chips and to the hard
drives."
"Captain, yer overloadin' her as it is. The power supply just isn't
built to take two hard drrrives."
"Power, Scotty! I want more power! Chekov, install the disk cache.
Spock, any word on the millions of instructions per second?"
"Fascinating, Captain. It seems as if the turbo accelerator board
is overrunning the hard drive, which, due to its poorer response time,
is slowing down the system performance."
"Scotty, where is that power!?"
"Captain, I'm givin ye all she's got. It's that miserable 80986
with the 512k bit bus multiplexed down to one pin. The wee beastie has
these teeny weeny little segments that can only handle so much. You'll
have to install an extended memory board, do bank switching, and
allocate a huge ram disk if you want to go any faster."
"Chekov, install the EMS board."
"Yes, sir."
"Uhura, any word from mainframe command?"
"Well, Captain, we're received several interrupts from the serial
port, but because we're not multitasking, the data is just sitting
there."
"Scotty, how much longer until we can shift into Unix?"
"Captain, if ye can squeeze another 60 megabytes onto that hard
disk, we might have room for Unix and a couple of system utilities.
Possibly an application. We'll need to increase the clock speed to 28
gigahertz. I think we can do it, but there are too many unknowns, too
many bugs in the system! We'll have to do a proper shakedown."
"Spock?"
"Unix is a massive system, Captain, and the commands have to be
decoded from hieroglyphics invented back in ancient times. It may be
more than we can handle."
"Sulu, put in the 60 meg hard drive, install Unix for mouse drive.
Prepare to go to Task speed on my signal."
"Mouse drive? ......Aye, Captain."
"Now! Yes, Bones? What do you want?"
"Jim, you just have a little spreadsheet work, mailing labels, and
some word processing. Don't you think you're overdoing it a bit?"
"Sulu?"
"Captain, she's shifting into multitasking. Task one. Task two....
Captain, I'm losing control at the helm. It looks like we've
encountered a bad sector."
"Put it on visual, Sulu."
"Captain, the VGA is not responding, sir. Shifting resolution into
EGA mode."
"Spock? What's the problem?"
"Unknown, Captain. Unix seems to be rerouting all input to a null
device." Trying 'grep'", now muttering, "whatever that is."
"Scotty, what's happening with those '/dev' subdirectories?"
"Captain, she canna take much morrre.... Another fifteen seconds
and me math chips'll burrrn up for surrre...."
"Scotty, we're not using the math chip."
"Sorry, Captain, but I haven't been able to say that for twenty
minutes."
"Uhura, notify mainframe command."
"Captain, either communications is breaking up, or you're dropping
into Shakespearean stutter mode again."
"Captain, she canna take much morrre.... Another fifteen seconds
and me math chips'll burrrn up for surrre...."
"Enough Scotty!"
"Captain! I'm getting a message from mainframe command......
Apparently, sir, they're going to time-warp previously forgotten modes
of data handling, it looks like SQL syntax is forming in the language
port now."
"Scotty, quick, pop-up the menu shields. This could be a trick to
get us back to card punching."
"I'm sorry, Captain, but Dbase LCXIX doesn't have pop-ups that work
yet."
"Chekov, we need hardcopy! Fire HP LaserJet!"
"Aye, sir."
"Bones, how do I see which tasks are active?"
"I'm a doctor, Jim, not a command shell!"
"Scotty! Why can't I get a directory on this thing!!?"
"Captain, ye just canna have a mouse driven pull down menu system
with Unix. It's like matter and antimatter, the system's too bogged
down. Yer drainin me quartz crystals."
"Chekov, report."
"Captain, the little arrow is responding, but it gets to the side of
the screen before the windows have a chance to move..."
"Spock? What's happening to our multitasking?"
"It appears as if the needs of the one are outweighing the needs of
the many."
"Captain, she's not even runnin on reserve now. We'll have to do a
cold boot for surrre."
"Bones?"
"It's dead, Jim."
W H Y C O P S H A T E Y O U <<<<&l <
-if you have to ask get out of the way-
Have you ever been stopped by a traffic cop and, while he was
writing a ticket or giving you a warning, you got the feeling that
he would just love to yank you out of the car, right through the
window, and smash your face into the front fender?...
